HOSPITAL bosses said they have taken steps to reduce the number of prescription errors made at the Royal Blackburn and Burnley General. Chief nurse Christine Pearson told board members at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust: “A recurring theme in medicines incidents is that of incorrect prescribing for inpatients due to errors made during the initial admission process.

“The trust now makes a significant investment of the pharmacy resource into a ‘pathway check’ on prescribing at admission to improve safety.

“The most recent development has been a checklist inserted in the patients notes to ensure the right information is elicited for every patient every time. The aspiration is to have this hard printed into the Generic Assessment Document.”